I had a friend go see the Shins, and he came back raving about the band who opened for them, this incredible, virtuosic group from Tucson called Calexico.

We listened to their album, 2003’s Feast of Wire, and found a bold mix of modern and traditional sounds. It is an album you don’t skip songs through, filled with excellent modulations of waltzes, rock, mariachi, solo piano, both boisterous and small. Towering over the album, in my opinion, is this epic, “Black Heart.”

The song is like a dark cloud settling over the top of you. The resilient choruses are bursts of bravery. The strings go beyond excellent orchestration and become a character in this song’s panoramic southwestern landscape: Their excellent screaming and wailing finale is the cloud touching the horizon, light winking out, and your final regrets only then occurring to you.